Rob watched him leave, then turned and surveyed the whole Security area. “No Pritti,” he muttered.
“She might be sleeping,” Christian pointed out. “Why do you mention that?” He appreciated Rob’s intuitive ability to marry up odd facts and arrive at unexpected, yet correct, extrapolations.
Rob shook his head. “Are Pritti and Demyan...?” He trailed off delicately.
Brenden scowled. “How would I know and why would the gods care?” he said and continued reading displays.
Christian considered the question, thrusting aside any distaste or surprise. “It’s possible,” he said judiciously. “But why would either of them seek such misery?”
“What do you mean?” Rob seemed almost shocked.
“Pairings between vampire and psi are doomed. Demyan is essentially immortal. And Pritti’s short, hot life is nearing its end. Any relationship they develop can only be guaranteed to end hard and quickly.”
“You could say the same thing about vampire and human,” Rob pointed out. “Justin and Dionne...?”
“Yes, but unlike psi , humans can be made vampire, if they chose that path. Psi can’t be made. Their blood rejects the symbiot and their raging metabolism fights the symbiot’s control. To try to make a psi vampire brings only a swifter, more painful death to them.” Christian sighed. “We learned this two centuries ago and the experience is still vivid. No vampire would attempt it again.”
Rob looked down the passage where Demyan had disappeared, a frown marring his forehead. “If they were desperate enough, they might. Love drives men to extraordinary deeds.”
Christian rested his hand on Rob’s forearm. “I know,” he said. In his memory, still perfectly preserved, he could recall at will the precious moment when he had looked up from helping Tally and baby Jack out from the arrival chamber, to see Rob standing in the agency lounge. Waiting for them, as he had miraculously contrived to do for over nine hundred years since they had left him in the past.
Rob stirred and looked back at Christian. His smile warmed. “Let’s go home,” he said, his voice a note or two deeper.
Christian stood up. “We’ll finish up here later,” he told Brenden.
Brenden waved them away with an impatient flick of his hand. “Go hug your wife,” he growled, turning back to his station with a scowl. “And send Kieren back here. I could use his help since everyone else is buggering off. It’s not like you’ll want him in the room with you for the next while or so.” And he laughed loudly at his own weak joke.
But there was only Christian and Rob left in the room and they just rolled their eyes.
* * * * *
Cathair Saidhbhín, County Kerry, Ireland. 1195 A.D.
There had been rumours of strangers in the area, a few weeks before, so when the two figures appeared on the cliffhead above the beach and he didn’t recognize them immediately as locals, Ryan knew he’d been found.
He came to a standstill on the beach, letting the wind whip the hair out of his eyes, watching them.
A man and a woman, both tall, the woman redheaded.
Nia.
His gut clenched, even as he admired their tenacity and ingenuity. It wouldn’t have been easy to find him, even with Cáel’s copious research to help.
There was a cry of a lonely gull overhead and the slow roll of the waves against the grey sand of the beach, but other than the three of them, the beach was utterly deserted. All the fishermen had pulled up their boats just before noon, their day’s fishing done. Their nets were spread over the upturned hulls, drying in the weak sun and wind.
The beach curved in a long crescent for two miles and the only sign, other than the boats, that humans knew it existed was the path Cáel was carefully picking his way along down the cliff and far off on the promontory, a tiny puff of smoke from a cottage that couldn’t be seen from here, because it was tucked away behind protective trees and bushes.
There was a stew warming on the fire in that cottage, but Ryan had a feeling he wouldn’t be eating it any time soon.
Nia stood for a moment longer on the cliff top, then she disappeared.
Then appeared next to his side.
“And you didn’t bring Cáel with you? That’s ungentlemanly of you,” Ryan told her.
She was wearing a travel-stained cloak and under it, petticoats and a skirt that looked like something she might have bought at one of the stalls in Killarney on market day. A money pouch hung from her waist and Ryan had no doubt her twin long knives were tucked into her boots. Her shirt was the top half of the green velvet dress Ryan had last seen her wearing on the station, but it showed signs of wear, stains and rips.
Her hair was loose, tangled and a glowing rippling red. Her lips were free of makeup and were naturally red. Ryan thought she looked glorious. His heart ached at the sight of her.
“Cáel wanted me to come ahead. To talk to you alone, first.”
“Ah. So he wants his pound of flesh, too.”
Nayara rolled her eyes.
“You look like you’ve been travelling hard, Nayara. How long did it take to find me?”
“Two weeks, subjectively. We’ve ranged up and down a couple of hundred years, looking for hints of you and we’ve been closing in on you the last day or so. You may have heard about us. We were open about asking after you.”
“I heard,” Ryan confirmed.
“How long have you been sulking here, Ryan?” she asked, a hand dropping to her hip. Attack mode.
Sulking? An interesting choice of words. He pulled his cloak in tighter around him as protection against the chill wind. “Not long. A week. But I’m known here. I’m local.”
“I know. Your wife came from here.”
Ryan didn’t think he could be any more surprised than he was right then. “You know about Siobhan?” he asked. Then he realized. “Cáel. Of course, he would have found out about her eventually, I suppose. I am the only one left alive who remembers her—who knows about her. I don’t know who told him.”
“You were human, Ryan. You married in a human ceremony. There are records for these times. Church records, records of state. Lyle Bean found them because he’s a good researcher. Not because he found someone who knew.”
“Ah.” Ryan grimaced. “I had forgotten about that.” He glanced toward the cliff. Cáel was either injured or he was deliberately taking his time traversing the path. Either way, he was giving Ryan the time he needed to adjust to this.
He looked at Nia. “I wasn’t hiding Siobhan from you.”
“I know.”
“You do?” he asked, surprised again.
“She’s been with you all along, your entire life. The medallion was hers, wasn’t it, Ryan? The Celtic tree of life you gave Salathiel—she gave it to you, first.”
Ryan glanced down at the base of her neck, where the medallion now rested. His throat constricted. It took him a moment to gather the courage to speak. “It was her wedding gift to me,” he said. “She’d heard about the myth of the tree of life, how it meant immortality. Life springing up endlessly. It appealed to her. So she had the medallion made for me. Our marriage was six weeks old when the Normans rode through the village on a scouting tour. One of them took a fancy to Siobhan, but she would have none of him. So he killed her for her defiance...and me, because I tried to stop him.”
Nayara touched his shoulder. It was a diffident, shy touch. “The one that had told her about the tree, about immortality. He was a vampire?”
“So I discovered when I woke and found myself one. For Siobhan, it was too late. But he grieved over her loss and saved me to compensate.”
Tears were sparkling in Nia’s eyes. “Did you grieve, Ryan?”
“I did for a long time,” he admitted. “But then I met you and I didn’t need to anymore.”
“And now you’re just being a stubborn, idiotic son of a bitch,” she added.
The switch took him by surprise. Again.
Nayara pulled her hair out of her face and twisted i
t out of the way of the sharp fingers of the wind. “You heard me, Ryan. You’re a moron.”
“I’m the moron?” he asked. “You’re the one that was fucking him in the middle of your office. It didn’t occur to you that I wouldn’t walk in at some point? Or were you hoping I would?”
But Nayara didn’t quail or collapse back down into herself as she might once have. She put her hands on her hips. Anger glittered in her eyes. “Why shouldn’t I fuck him in my office?” she demanded.
Ryan drew in a breath to answer and couldn’t find one—not an answer that he could speak aloud. He shook his head. “That’s not the point—”
“Yes it is the point!” she screamed. At the sound of her voice, seagulls that had settled around them, hoping for scraps of food, took off with raucous cries, lifting up into the wind.
Ryan even took a step back.
And Nayara stepped towards him. There was no mistaking the anger in her eyes now. “Answer the goddam question, Ryan. Why shouldn’t I fuck Cáel in my office? Or anywhere I damn well want to?”
Cáel was striding across the beach now. He wore a cape with a hood and a richly embroidered long tunic over soft hide boots. There was a good belt with a brass buckle pulling the tunic in around his waist and an eating knife in a good sheath hanging from the belt. It made him look rich and foreign, which explained away his features, which were exotic for here and now.
“Ryan!” Nayara snapped impatiently.
Ryan looked back at her and realized he was putting off answering her. He’d rather face Cáel than deal with Nayara.
His heart was racing, like he had run the length of the beach.
Nayara tilted her head. “Why can’t I fuck Cáel?” she repeated, her voice dangerously low.
Cáel reached them. Despite the challenging climb down the cliffside and the long walk over the beach, he seemed barely taxed. He looked at Ryan, his gaze running from head to foot.
Ryan swung his fist at Cáel’s face, telegraphing the punch and fully expecting Cáel to get his hand up to block it like he had in New Orleans. And for a sucker punch like that, Cáel would be fully justified in swinging right back.
But Cáel just stood there and Ryan’s fist landed heavily against his cheek, throwing Cáel’s head around with a hard smacking sound that made even Ryan wince.
Cáel bent over and spat blood into the still damp sand, then ran his tongue around his teeth, inspecting them. He straightened and pressed his fingers against his cheekbone experimentally and looked at Ryan. “Feel better?” he asked.
Ryan stared at him. “Do you?”
“I did deserve that,” Cáel agreed. “But not for the reason you think.”
Ryan glanced at Nayara, hoping she would look as puzzled as he felt.
She was smiling.
Ryan shook his head. “You’re both utterly nuts,” he declared.
“I feel saner than I have in a long time,” Nayara told him. “And you’re still dodging my question.”
Ryan curled his hands into fists, rolled his head back to look up into the iron grey sky hanging low overhead and screamed “Fuck!” at the top of his lungs.
Nayara shook her head. “Not an answer.”
“Keep this up and I’ll jump away again,” he warned.
“We’ll just track you down again,” Cáel told him. “Nayara deserves an answer.”
“Why?” Ryan demanded, his anger leaping higher.
“Six hundred years together isn’t enough justification?” Cáel asked reasonably.
“Why are you even here?” Ryan asked him.
“I wasn’t expecting to be,” Cáel replied calmly. “I pushed Nia into coming. She pulled me into the jump. As to why, you’ll have to check with her.” He smiled a little. “I have a feeling the price for her answer will be answering her question first.”
“Yes, it is,” Nayara agreed coolly.
Ryan wrapped the cloak even more tightly around him and shivered. “You’re working together against me.”
“You don’t pout well, Ryan,” Nia chided. She tilted her head enquiringly again and...just waited.
Cáel had wrapped his cloak around him against the wind and was watching Ryan, too.
Ryan realized that both of them were quite serious. They had tracked him down, taking weeks to do it and were going to make him talk even if they stood here and nagged until the tide came back in again.
“Can’t we at least go inside and talk about this?” Ryan asked. “This wind has a bite to it.”
“No,” Nia replied.
“And have you put this off another hour?” Cáel added. “Time’s up, Ryan. You can’t duck this anymore. Answer the question. Then, maybe, we’ll think about moving.”
Ryan shuddered and he knew it was from more than just cold. And the trembling didn’t end once the ripple had passed through him. It settled deep into his bones. He began to shake with it. His heart was hurting.
Nia laced her fingers together. It was an angelic pose, for a woman who had by-passed innocence long before Ryan was born. “Now, Ryan,” she said softly. “Explain why you object to Cáel being in my bed?”
He couldn’t seem to get control of his breathing. He was almost panting.
“Ryan?” Nia asked softly.
Her eyes, her beautiful eyes, were not letting him go.
Ryan squeezed his eyes shut, snatched a shallow breath and the shreds of his courage and jumped. “You’re mine,” he gasped. There. He’d got it out. But that wasn’t all of it. The pain was exploding in his chest. “So is he,” Ryan exhaled. “Oh, god.” He sank to his knees, thrusting his hand out for balance as the truth seemed to rise up and overwhelm him. “I love you,” he said and his voice was hoarse with the thick congestion of emotions in his chest. “Both of you.” He hung his head. “I can’t stand the idea of losing you, but I already have and I don’t know why.”
Hands were on his shoulders, lifting him up. He didn’t know whose. There was too much actual physical pain choking his throat and ramming against his chest for him to look.
Hands on his face, lifting it. “You said it,” Cáel murmured.
“You’ve seen it,” Nia whispered, her voice close by, too.
Ryan managed to open his eyes. He was mortified to feel them fill with tears, blurring his sight. Cáel was kneeling on the sand in front of him and Nia crouched beside him.
They blocked the wind. It was a small thing, but it seemed terribly significant to him.
Cáel was the one cradling his face. His big thumb wiped under Ryan’s eyes, removing the offensive tears. “That’s all you needed to do, Ryan. Just acknowledge it.”
Ryan took three shuddering breaths to be able to speak again. “Sadists.”
Nia touched Cáel’s shoulder. “Hold him, Cáel.”
He looked puzzled, even as he reached forward to wrap his arm around Ryan’s shoulders.
But Ryan suspected. “Nia, no,” he said, as she put her arms around Cáel’s neck and his. She pushed them sideways, leaning forward herself, making them fall from their knees toward the sand. It wasn’t a long drop, but Nia didn’t need much. She was that good.
* * * * *
Near Adoáin, Navarra, Spain. 2262 A.D.
Strong sunlight bathed them. There was no wind.
Nayara furled back her coat and lifted her face to the sun. The scents lifting up from the trees and bushes were achingly familiar.
“Where are we?” Ryan demanded, standing up.
“You can’t tell?” Cáel asked dryly. “Look at her.”
Nayara opened her eyes. “We’re home,” she told them.
“Told you,” Cáel said, looking at Ryan.
Ryan glanced at him, scowling.
Nayara looked around. The open hillside was lonely and deserted as always.
“Hell of a view,” Cáel remarked. “Is this north or south we’re looking at, Nia?”
“South,” she said.
“Spain, then?”
She nodded. “We’re i
n Spain.”
Ryan made a small sound. "That home. Basque country. What year?”
“Twenty-two sixty-two,” Nia said.
“Far enough back to keep us human,” Ryan murmured. “I’m surprised you can’t see signs of human occupation anywhere from here.”
“It’s too stony and dry. Barely anything grows here, even with forced rain.” She turned and headed for the track that led to the house. “Come and get warm. I’m sure you’re hungry, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
As always, when she first saw the big rambling house when she topped the rise, Nayara’s heart squeezed a little with pride and the ache of homecoming. It was one of the reasons she always jumped to the hillside, rather than make her arrival a room inside the house.
She had designed the homestead on ancient Celtic homes found in the area, for Basques originated from wandering tribes of Celts and their homebuilding had been efficient. They had always taken advantage of local materials and built to protect against local weather patterns.
Nayara had also stolen freely from the best of the Spanish and Roman designs. She had ended up with a farmhouse—for hers was a working farm—that was cool in summer, warm in winter, while using less energy to make it so. It had a natural beauty about it that made it a wonderful retreat when life had simply become unbearable.
Nayara had been retreating here for two hundred years.
The building was covered in vines, with terracotta tiles on the roof, ironwork grills in the windows and olive trees shading the roof.
Goats cropped at the lawn surrounding the house, while a stable boy kept an eye on them, discouraging them from munching on the rest of the garden.
Her heart swelled with peace and contentment. This time the feeling was nearly overwhelming, because of the two men standing on either side of her.
Ryan glanced at her. “It looks wonderful,” he said. “But why didn’t you ever tell me about this place? I know about all the others. Even that beach shack of yours in Australia that you think you hid from me.”
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